In her charming children’s picture book, Peace at Last, Jill Murphy tells the story of Mr Bear, who tries in vain to find somewhere to sleep in peace. It is packed full of humour and finishes with a surprising final twist. There is also an unofficial video version.

Although endearing to the young reader and quaintly resonant of a typical family household, the message has a serious underlying message about the importance of peace and quiet – of solitude and stillness.

And especially solitude of the mind.

However, for many people, especially children, this kind of inner peace is far removed from their day-to-day experience. Their lives are chaotic, unregulated, routine-less and unpredictable. Their search for peace is far more critical than Mr Bear’s.

For some children, school is their only haven of peace. There, they find the routine, the stability, the acceptance they crave. For such children, peace is more than just happiness – and it is more important than happiness.

It’s serenity.

Nicola Marshall, in her blog post on a similar theme, reminded me of ‘The Serenity Prayer‘:

God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change,Courage to change the things I can –And wisdom to know the difference.

(attributed to Reinhold Niebuhr, 1892–1971)

Peace isn’t necessarily about outer calm in as much as happiness is not about wearing a smile on your face all the time. Rather, it’s the inner stillness that helps us manage our lives in the midst of chaos, trouble, unpredictability and situations that are out of our control. For children, this comes about through routine, stability, a safe environment and – most of all – acceptance.

Are we, whilst running our busy lives, helping the children in our care to achieve that inner stillness – that solitude of the mind?

At a conference last weekend, I put a bid in for a large cardboard castle being auctioned off for an autism charity. The castle was part of a display on an exhibition stand and it grabbed my attention because I’m always on the look out for assembly ideas that illustrate the concept of resilience. The castle represents strength, resistance, solidity – resilience. A community within a castle was kept safe by its thick, towering walls – protecting them from the onslaught of enemy weaponry and invasion. But it has a large gateway and drawbridge to let friendly visitors in, so it’s not closed to outsiders…

Resilient people are like a castle: they have inner strength which helps sustain them through the inevitable problems and challenges that are part of everyday life – and the occasional bigger attacks that appear from nowhere and threaten to destabilise us.

But it’s not just about the strength they possess: a castle represents a community – a group of people that share solidarity and up for each other. It’s very hard to be resilient on your own – you need people around you that you can trust, that believe in you, that accept you for who you are.

And neither is it about closing yourself off from the outside world: a castle has a huge gateway with a drawbridge. This would normally be left down and the gateway opened to allow people to travel in and out of the castle. Friendly visitors are welcome but, when threats loom, down comes the portcullis and up comes the drawbridge to stop the enemy from entering – to protect those inside the castle. Resilient people have resources at hand so that when life becomes threatening – when disaster looms large – they are able to withstand the onslaught of fear and anxiety that can assail them. This is only possible because of the courage and determination that is embedded within them – because of the resilience they have built up – like the castle walls.

But resilience doesn’t just happen. And castles don’t just happen. They have to be built over a long period of time – and by a lot of people helping. Resilience is built up over time as a person experiences acceptance by others, as they develop belief in themselves (with the encouragement of others) and as they build up courage and confidence. All of this is more likely to happen within a safe, healthy and happy community.

For a child, this should first be their family, but, for some, the family is an unhealthy community, so their class at school is often a safe haven for them. Having adults within a school who can identify the child whose ‘walls’ need building up is a life-saver for some children – they learn to build trusting relationships, they learn to believe in themselves and they learn to make wise lifestyle choices.

We’ve all come across children who need help building their castle walls – and all they really want to start with is acceptance – not judgement.

Talking of acceptance, I was very happy to be the winner of the castle and accepted it gratefully from Veronica Pullen (pictured). Now, I will use it in school assemblies to talk about resilience.